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Assessing and Addressing the Coronavirus-Induced Economic Crisis: Evidence from 1.5 Billion Sales Invoice
Zhuo Chen, Pengfei Li, Li Liao, Zhengwei Wang, Aug 31, 2022We probe the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent containment policies on business activities in China by exploiting big data on 1.5 billion sales invoices. The average drop in sales was between 23% and 35%, depending on firm size, for the 12-week period after the Wuhan lockdown.
The Long-Run Trend of Residential Investment in China
Ding Ding, Weicheng Lian, Oct 09, 2019Residential investment has been a key growth engine for China in the last two decades. Total housing investment grew from about 4 percent of GDP in 1997 to a peak of 15 percent of GDP in 2014, with residential investment accounting for more than two-thirds of it. Our analysis indicates that structural changes in the Chinese economy that led to rebalancing toward consumption...
In Rural China, Gift-Giving Is an Increasingly Costly Competition
Erwin Bulte, Ruixin Wang, Xiaobo Zhang, May 01, 2019Gift expenditures grow swiftly in rural China and may adversely affect people's welfare. While gift-giving helps to maintain social status and connections, gift competition may create a predicament: people must spend more and more to "keep up with the Joneses." As a result, the escalating gift expenses crowd out spending on other important consumption and become increasingly burdensome to people in rural areas, particularly to the poor.
Going Green in China: Firms’ Responses to Stricter Environmental Regulations
Haichao Fan, Joshua Graff Zivin, Zonglai Kou, Xueyue Liu, Huanhuan Wang, Apr 29, 2020Evidence from China shows that firms respond to stricter enforcement of the emission reduction target by reducing their pollution. This effect is stronger for firms in industries with higher pollution intensity. Stricter environmental regulations also lead to sharp declines in firms’ profits, capital, and labor. A sequence of tests of the underlying mechanisms reveals...
The Dynamic Effects of Computerized VAT Invoices on Chinese Manufacturing Firms
Haichao Fan, Yu Liu, Nancy Qian, Jaya Wen, Aug 08, 2018This investigation uses a balanced panel of large manufacturing firms to provide novel evidence on the dynamic effects of computerizing VAT invoices on tax revenues and firm behavior in China, 1998-2007. We find that computerization increases cumulative VAT revenues and increases the effective average tax rate. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the effects of computerization change over time: tax revenue gains are likely to be smaller in the long run. Meanwhile, firms reduce output and input, and increase productivity monotonically over time.
